The Lillywhite Sessions
Encyclopedia
The Lillywhite Sessions (tLWS) is a collection of songs recorded by Dave Matthews Band
in 1999 and 2000 and produced by Steve Lillywhite
. The songs, recorded by the band as a follow-up to their 1998 album Before These Crowded Streets
, were ultimately scrapped by the band. Upon abandoning the album-in-progress, Dave Matthews
was assigned to work with producer Glen Ballard who, in association with Matthews, wrote the album Everyday
in just ten days. This contrasted with the band's prior style of writing, which included significant collaboration between the band members in the studio. The recordings later emerged on the Internet shortly after the release of Everyday, and created controversy among fans as well as the music industry, which was early in its campaign to curb illegal file downloads. The Lillywhite Sessions were never released.
Also recorded but cut from the album is 'Build You a House'.
, Crash
, and Before These Crowded Streets
), all of which had been produced by Steve Lillywhite. Having recorded Dave Matthews Band in studios in New York City
, Woodstock, New York and Sausalito, California
, Lillywhite had an established relationship with its members. For this album, the band purchased a house near their hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia
and converted a portion of it into a recording studio. The band tried some new things, including Matthews playing a twelve string guitar
. Lillywhite posted a report about the session-in-progress on the band's website, saying that the band had recorded a number of new songs, including "Sweet Up and Down," and had reworked a song which the Dave Matthews Band performed with Santana
in 1999, "John the Revelator," retitling it "JTR."
During the recording of the sessions, RCA Records
executive Bruce Flohr asked drummer
Carter Beauford
about his feelings about the songs at that point, to which he replied that he "didn't feel it" and was almost certain that the other band members "didn't feel it" either, implying that the recordings were not going in the direction in which the band had intended. The songs, which had been recorded at the point were very dark, which Dave Matthews
claimed was partly inspired by his alcohol
consumption during the sessions, inspiring him to write "sad bastard songs" that were full of pity.
The album was scheduled for release in the second half of 2000. The band eventually decided to scrap the sessions, and perform their summer tour without a completed album to support. The band played a number of new songs that summer from those sessions, including "Grey Street," "Raven," "Sweet Up and Down," "Grace Is Gone," "Bartender," "Digging a Ditch" and the reworked "JTR."
referred to The Lillywhite Sessions original title as The Summer So Far, the album was never intended to be titled as such. The title The Summer So Far was simply the name of the band's most current recording of the sessions, dubbed by engineer Stephen Harris
, who later produced Busted Stuff
. Dave Matthews himself has claimed in several interviews that he intended to title the final album Busted Stuff, which he eventually did when the band went back in the recording studio in 2002 to re-record the album. The title Lillywhite Sessions was dubbed by fans, and the name stuck.
, and discussed completing the shelved Sessions. During the time they spent together, Matthews and Ballard wrote an entire album of new songs before the rest of the band had joined them. The album, which featured electric guitar by Matthews and a minimal use of the rest of the band, was released in February 2001 as Everyday
. It sounded very different from previous Dave Matthews Band albums.
via e-mail inquiring what to do with the tracks, and posted his message on the message boards at Dave Matthews Band fan site "DMBML."
Knapp received an apparently faked e-mail response from Lillywhite, giving Knapp approval to release the tracks via the Internet. Since Knapp only had a 56k dial-up modem, he decided to transfer the songs to someone with a lot of bandwidth who could host them. Using Napster, Knapp then sent the tracks to a fellow member of DMBML, Drew Wiley, who released over the Internet the 96 kbit/s MP3
s. Within days, the tracks were also released as 128 kbit/s MP3s, and later as lossless SHN
files. The tracks made their way all over the internet via private servers and peer-to-peer
programs like Napster
. After the release of Everyday, which many fans complained was too "pop
-ish", the leak of the Sessions gave some fans what they wanted—an album recorded much like older Dave Matthews Band
material.
Below is a copy of the text file
that accompanied the internet-circulated demo:
and Rolling Stone
, which gave the unmastered album better reviews than the successful Everyday. During the 2001 summer tour, the band didn't just debut live versions of the songs from Everyday, but also began to play "Big Eyed Fish," which was on the sessions but up to that point had never been performed live. The Dave Matthews Band was unexpectedly touring behind two albums, the one which they actually released, and the one which they didn't want in the marketplace. In response to the album's leak, Steve Lillywhite said, "I cannot condone the release of these unfinished recordings, although I feel these are some of the most moving pieces of music that I've ever recorded with Dave Matthews Band."
, a new album which contained re-recordings of many of the songs that were left collecting dust with Sessions. The new album contained 11 tracks—nine tracks re-recorded from The Lillywhite Sessions, and two new tracks ("Where Are You Going
" and "You Never Know"). "JTR," "Sweet Up and Down," and "Monkey Man," were the three tracks not re-recorded on the album.
"JTR" returned as part of the band's concert rotation, having appeared on the Live at Folsom Field album and played during the 2006 summer tour
. "Sweet Up and Down" was performed several times by the band on the 2000 summer tour, but vanished just a month and a half after the tour's start. It reemerged in 2003 during the Dave Matthews & Friends
tour. The song also made a brief return to DMB setlists in 2007, and returned again during the 2010 summer tour. "Monkey Man" was never released on an album or played live, making it the only song that is exclusively available on The Lillywhite Sessions.
the tracks from The Lillywhite Sessions and released them on the Internet. Using the original SHN
files released online, Karmageddon burned the songs to a CD-R
and ran them through high-end audio mastering equipment, such as a parametric equalizer, audio converter
s, and a tube compressor. The songs were then balanced
to distribute the music evenly through stereo channels
, and eventually burned back onto a CD-R. Following the release of the mastered album, "Karmageddon," claimed in an interview that the mastering process he used is "basically the TRUE industry standard as to how a CD gets finalized before mass-production." Once the mastered album was released on the internet, it became the first-ever mastered copy of The Lillywhite Sessions, since the original leaked files were simply raw tracks from the mixing board
and were never mastered.
Dave Matthews Band
Dave Matthews Band, sometimes shortened to DMB, is a U.S. rock band formed in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1991. The founding members were singer-songwriter and guitarist Dave Matthews, bassist Stefan Lessard, drummer/backing vocalist Carter Beauford and saxophonist LeRoi Moore. Boyd Tinsley was...
in 1999 and 2000 and produced by Steve Lillywhite
Steve Lillywhite
Steve Lillywhite is an English Grammy Award winning record producer. Since he began his career in 1977, Lillywhite has been credited for working on over 500 records and has collaborated with a variety of musicians including XTC, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Dave Matthews Band, U2, Peter Gabriel,...
. The songs, recorded by the band as a follow-up to their 1998 album Before These Crowded Streets
Before These Crowded Streets
Before These Crowded Streets is the third studio album by Dave Matthews Band, released on April 28, 1998. It is the last official album by the group to be produced by longtime producer Steve Lillywhite and their first album recorded at The Plant Recording Studios in Sausalito, California...
, were ultimately scrapped by the band. Upon abandoning the album-in-progress, Dave Matthews
Dave Matthews
David John "Dave" Matthews is a South African–born American musician and occasional actor, best known as the lead vocalist, songwriter, and guitarist for the Dave Matthews Band...
was assigned to work with producer Glen Ballard who, in association with Matthews, wrote the album Everyday
Everyday (Dave Matthews Band album)
Everyday is the fourth studio album by Dave Matthews Band, released on February 27, 2001.-Sales:The album did very well in the United States. It opened at #1 with 755,000 copies sold its first week, and stayed at #1 for two weeks. After 25 weeks of sales, it sold over 2.5 million copies. To date,...
in just ten days. This contrasted with the band's prior style of writing, which included significant collaboration between the band members in the studio. The recordings later emerged on the Internet shortly after the release of Everyday, and created controversy among fans as well as the music industry, which was early in its campaign to curb illegal file downloads. The Lillywhite Sessions were never released.
Track listing
- "Busted Stuff" – 4:05
- "Grey Street" – 5:53
- "Diggin' a Ditch" – 4:24
- "Sweet Up and Down" – 4:43
- "JTRJTR (song)"JTR" is a song by Dave Matthews Band from their unreleased album, The Lillywhite Sessions. The song originated from "John the Revelator," a song written by Dave Matthews with the help from Carlos Santana. Matthews and Santana wrote "John the Revelator" as a love song about someone calling out to...
" – 5:36 - "Big Eyed Fish" – 5:16
- "Grace is Gone" – 5:12
- "Captain (Crazy)" – 5:27
- "BartenderBartender (Dave Matthews Band song)"Bartender" is one of Dave Matthews Band's most popular live songs, featured on their studio album Busted Stuff. The song was one of the many that carried over from the near-abandoned project that is The Lillywhite Sessions...
" –10:07 - "Monkey Man" – 7:21
- "Kit Kat Jam" – 5:34
- "Raven" – 6:24
Also recorded but cut from the album is 'Build You a House'.
Recording sessions
The album was supposed to be produced in the manner of the band's prior three (Under the Table and DreamingUnder the Table and Dreaming
-Songs cut from the album:Songs that were recorded during the sessions, but weren't included on the final cut:*"Granny" – Dave wanted this to be the band's first single, but the song never made it to any of the studio albums. Nonetheless, the song remains a strong fan favorite and is being played...
, Crash
Crash (Dave Matthews Band album)
Crash is the second studio album by Dave Matthews Band, released on April 30, 1996. It includes the band's most successful single, "Crash into Me".The album has been certified 7× platinum.-Track listing:All songs by David J...
, and Before These Crowded Streets
Before These Crowded Streets
Before These Crowded Streets is the third studio album by Dave Matthews Band, released on April 28, 1998. It is the last official album by the group to be produced by longtime producer Steve Lillywhite and their first album recorded at The Plant Recording Studios in Sausalito, California...
), all of which had been produced by Steve Lillywhite. Having recorded Dave Matthews Band in studios in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Woodstock, New York and Sausalito, California
Sausalito, California
Sausalito is a San Francisco Bay Area city, in Marin County, California, United States. Sausalito is south-southeast of San Rafael, at an elevation of 13 feet . The population was 7,061 as of the 2010 census. The community is situated near the northern end of the Golden Gate Bridge, and prior to...
, Lillywhite had an established relationship with its members. For this album, the band purchased a house near their hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia
Charlottesville is an independent city geographically surrounded by but separate from Albemarle County in the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States, and named after Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the queen consort of King George III of the United Kingdom.The official population estimate for...
and converted a portion of it into a recording studio. The band tried some new things, including Matthews playing a twelve string guitar
Twelve string guitar
The twelve-string guitar is an acoustic or electric guitar with 12 strings in 6 courses, which produces a richer, more ringing tone than a standard six-string guitar...
. Lillywhite posted a report about the session-in-progress on the band's website, saying that the band had recorded a number of new songs, including "Sweet Up and Down," and had reworked a song which the Dave Matthews Band performed with Santana
Santana (band)
Santana is a rock band based around guitarist Carlos Santana and founded in the late 1960s. It first came to public attention after their performing the song "Soul Sacrifice" at the Woodstock Festival in 1969, when their Latin rock provided a contrast to other acts on the bill...
in 1999, "John the Revelator," retitling it "JTR."
During the recording of the sessions, RCA Records
RCA Records
RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...
executive Bruce Flohr asked drummer
Drummer
A drummer is a musician who is capable of playing drums, which includes but is not limited to a drum kit and accessory based hardware which includes an assortment of pedals and standing support mechanisms, marching percussion and/or any musical instrument that is struck within the context of a...
Carter Beauford
Carter Beauford
Carter Anthony Beauford is an American drummer, percussionist, and founding member of Dave Matthews Band. He is known for his ability to adapt to a variety of genres, and both his ambidextrous and his open hand drumming styles. He plays the drums and sings backing vocals in the band...
about his feelings about the songs at that point, to which he replied that he "didn't feel it" and was almost certain that the other band members "didn't feel it" either, implying that the recordings were not going in the direction in which the band had intended. The songs, which had been recorded at the point were very dark, which Dave Matthews
Dave Matthews
David John "Dave" Matthews is a South African–born American musician and occasional actor, best known as the lead vocalist, songwriter, and guitarist for the Dave Matthews Band...
claimed was partly inspired by his alcohol
Alcoholic beverage
An alcoholic beverage is a drink containing ethanol, commonly known as alcohol. Alcoholic beverages are divided into three general classes: beers, wines, and spirits. They are legally consumed in most countries, and over 100 countries have laws regulating their production, sale, and consumption...
consumption during the sessions, inspiring him to write "sad bastard songs" that were full of pity.
The album was scheduled for release in the second half of 2000. The band eventually decided to scrap the sessions, and perform their summer tour without a completed album to support. The band played a number of new songs that summer from those sessions, including "Grey Street," "Raven," "Sweet Up and Down," "Grace Is Gone," "Bartender," "Digging a Ditch" and the reworked "JTR."
"The Summer So Far"
Although Rolling StoneRolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
referred to The Lillywhite Sessions original title as The Summer So Far, the album was never intended to be titled as such. The title The Summer So Far was simply the name of the band's most current recording of the sessions, dubbed by engineer Stephen Harris
Stephen Harris (producer)
Stephen Harris is an English music producer and mixer. He has worked with artists including Dave Matthews Band, Ben Kweller, Blue Merle, Kula Shaker, and with B-Unique bands such as Kaiser Chiefs, The Automatic and Pull Tiger Tail...
, who later produced Busted Stuff
Busted Stuff
Busted Stuff is the fifth album by Dave Matthews Band, released by RCA Records on July 16, 2002.Nine of the eleven tracks on this album are re-recorded versions of songs that first appeared on 2000's abandoned project now known as The Lillywhite Sessions. "Where Are You Going" and "You Never Know"...
. Dave Matthews himself has claimed in several interviews that he intended to title the final album Busted Stuff, which he eventually did when the band went back in the recording studio in 2002 to re-record the album. The title Lillywhite Sessions was dubbed by fans, and the name stuck.
Everyday
During the tour, Matthews was introduced to producer Glen BallardGlen Ballard
Glen Ballard is an American songwriter and record producer, best known for co-writing and producing Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill , which won Grammy Award for "Best Rock Album", and "Album of the Year" amongst others, and is ranked by the Rolling Stone amongst The 500 Greatest Albums of...
, and discussed completing the shelved Sessions. During the time they spent together, Matthews and Ballard wrote an entire album of new songs before the rest of the band had joined them. The album, which featured electric guitar by Matthews and a minimal use of the rest of the band, was released in February 2001 as Everyday
Everyday (Dave Matthews Band album)
Everyday is the fourth studio album by Dave Matthews Band, released on February 27, 2001.-Sales:The album did very well in the United States. It opened at #1 with 755,000 copies sold its first week, and stayed at #1 for two weeks. After 25 weeks of sales, it sold over 2.5 million copies. To date,...
. It sounded very different from previous Dave Matthews Band albums.
Internet leak
In March 2001, Craig Knapp, the lead singer of Dave Matthews Band cover band "Ants Marching," received a CD from a friend containing the lost Lillywhite Sessions. He then contacted producer Steve LillywhiteSteve Lillywhite
Steve Lillywhite is an English Grammy Award winning record producer. Since he began his career in 1977, Lillywhite has been credited for working on over 500 records and has collaborated with a variety of musicians including XTC, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Dave Matthews Band, U2, Peter Gabriel,...
via e-mail inquiring what to do with the tracks, and posted his message on the message boards at Dave Matthews Band fan site "DMBML."
- Hello Mr. Lillywhite,
- I thank you in advance for taking the time to read this E-mail. I have unintentionally placed myself in a very precarious situation.
- About a week ago, I received an E-mail from a DMB fan who claimed they had some unreleased material from the new Dave Matthews Band CD. He asked if I wanted a copy, and I said yes, thinking it was going to be acoustic takes from "Everyday." In any event, I received a package yesterday, and it was indeed the session that you and DMB recorded in Virginia.
- I love it very much, excellent work. I am blessed to receive this gift.
- My question for you is one of moral standards. I would really like to share these songs with the DMB trading community. However, I feel that if the Dave Matthews Band and Steve Lillywhite didn't release these songs, then what gives me that right? I don't want to disrespect the band, or yourself. I guess my question is simply this:
- Am I disrespecting the Dave Matthews Band and Steve Lillywhite by making these songs available?
- I would really appreciate a response when you get a chance.
- Thank you so much for your time,
- Craig Knapp
Knapp received an apparently faked e-mail response from Lillywhite, giving Knapp approval to release the tracks via the Internet. Since Knapp only had a 56k dial-up modem, he decided to transfer the songs to someone with a lot of bandwidth who could host them. Using Napster, Knapp then sent the tracks to a fellow member of DMBML, Drew Wiley, who released over the Internet the 96 kbit/s MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
s. Within days, the tracks were also released as 128 kbit/s MP3s, and later as lossless SHN
Shorten
Shorten is a file format used for compressing audio data. It is a form of data compression of files and is used to losslessly compress CD-quality audio files . Shorten is no longer developed and more recent lossless audio codecs such as FLAC, Monkey's Audio , TTA, and WavPack have become more...
files. The tracks made their way all over the internet via private servers and peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads among peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the application...
programs like Napster
Napster
Napster is an online music store and a Best Buy company. It was originally founded as a pioneering peer-to-peer file sharing Internet service that emphasized sharing audio files that were typically digitally encoded music as MP3 format files...
. After the release of Everyday, which many fans complained was too "pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
-ish", the leak of the Sessions gave some fans what they wanted—an album recorded much like older Dave Matthews Band
Dave Matthews Band
Dave Matthews Band, sometimes shortened to DMB, is a U.S. rock band formed in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1991. The founding members were singer-songwriter and guitarist Dave Matthews, bassist Stefan Lessard, drummer/backing vocalist Carter Beauford and saxophonist LeRoi Moore. Boyd Tinsley was...
material.
Demo #2 leak
A second demo, referred to as "disc two," had been admitted into existence to the communities after the initial release, and slowly, low-quality leaks of some of the disc started to circulate on Dave Matthews Band fan sites. Most of the information about this disc is from Drew Wiley. Wiley leaked one full song that has been released off this second disc, "Build You a House," a very rough song recorded early in the sessions and dropped later making no appearance on the widely spread Lillywhite Sessions disc. The clips that were released are recordings that Wiley made over the phone while his source played the tracks therefore they have notoriously bad audio quality, but provide a glimpse into what the band was doing during the early part of The Lillywhite Sessions. Songs like "JTR" and "Bartender" in their earliest rawest forms can be found on this disc, as well as an intro to "Grace Is Gone."Below is a copy of the text file
Text file
A text file is a kind of computer file that is structured as a sequence of lines of electronic text. A text file exists within a computer file system...
that accompanied the internet-circulated demo:
The Story So Far -- Demo #2 (The Lillywhite Sessions) Producer: Steve Lillywhite Recorded: Winter 2000 - Summer 2000 Track Name Time d1t01 Bartender 06:37.94 d1t02 JTR 07:52.70 d1t03 Busted Stuff 03:56.92 d1t04 Sweet Up & Down 04:32.58 d1t05 Diggin' a Ditch 04:15.09 d1t06 Build You a House 03:58.60 d1t07 Captain 05:38.37 d1t08 untitled jam 05:48.18 d1t09 Grace is Gone 07:33.00 d1 totals 50:13:4 |
Reception
Once the album leaked, attention by fans and media escalated. Many fans were eager for an official release of the sessions. Online feedback from fans, including a website-based campaign called "Release Lillywhite Recordings Campaign," received media attention from Entertainment WeeklyEntertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
and Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
, which gave the unmastered album better reviews than the successful Everyday. During the 2001 summer tour, the band didn't just debut live versions of the songs from Everyday, but also began to play "Big Eyed Fish," which was on the sessions but up to that point had never been performed live. The Dave Matthews Band was unexpectedly touring behind two albums, the one which they actually released, and the one which they didn't want in the marketplace. In response to the album's leak, Steve Lillywhite said, "I cannot condone the release of these unfinished recordings, although I feel these are some of the most moving pieces of music that I've ever recorded with Dave Matthews Band."
Busted Stuff and live performances
In 2002 the Dave Matthews Band released Busted StuffBusted Stuff
Busted Stuff is the fifth album by Dave Matthews Band, released by RCA Records on July 16, 2002.Nine of the eleven tracks on this album are re-recorded versions of songs that first appeared on 2000's abandoned project now known as The Lillywhite Sessions. "Where Are You Going" and "You Never Know"...
, a new album which contained re-recordings of many of the songs that were left collecting dust with Sessions. The new album contained 11 tracks—nine tracks re-recorded from The Lillywhite Sessions, and two new tracks ("Where Are You Going
Where Are You Going
"Where Are You Going" is the first single from Dave Matthews Band's album Busted Stuff. The single reached #38 on the Billboard Hot 100, #20 on the Modern Rock Tracks, and topped the Triple A chart. The song was featured in the 2002 Adam Sandler motion picture, Mr. Deeds. It is also featured on the...
" and "You Never Know"). "JTR," "Sweet Up and Down," and "Monkey Man," were the three tracks not re-recorded on the album.
"JTR" returned as part of the band's concert rotation, having appeared on the Live at Folsom Field album and played during the 2006 summer tour
Dave Matthews Band tours
Dave Matthews Band tours have taken place since 1991, when the band debuted as a small rock band in Charlottesville, Virginia. Since then, Dave Matthews Band has become internationally known, performing sold out shows at stadiums and large venues throughout the world...
. "Sweet Up and Down" was performed several times by the band on the 2000 summer tour, but vanished just a month and a half after the tour's start. It reemerged in 2003 during the Dave Matthews & Friends
Dave Matthews & Friends
Dave Matthews & Friends is an American jam band that was put together for a tour to support Dave Matthews' solo debut, Some Devil. Most of the musicians participated in the album's production...
tour. The song also made a brief return to DMB setlists in 2007, and returned again during the 2010 summer tour. "Monkey Man" was never released on an album or played live, making it the only song that is exclusively available on The Lillywhite Sessions.
Mastered release
In April 2006, a self-described recording engineer using the alias of "Karmageddon" masteredAudio mastering
Mastering, a form of audio post-production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device ; the source from which all copies will be produced...
the tracks from The Lillywhite Sessions and released them on the Internet. Using the original SHN
Shorten
Shorten is a file format used for compressing audio data. It is a form of data compression of files and is used to losslessly compress CD-quality audio files . Shorten is no longer developed and more recent lossless audio codecs such as FLAC, Monkey's Audio , TTA, and WavPack have become more...
files released online, Karmageddon burned the songs to a CD-R
CD-R
A CD-R is a variation of the Compact Disc invented by Philips and Sony. CD-R is a Write Once Read Many optical medium, though the whole disk does not have to be entirely written in the same session....
and ran them through high-end audio mastering equipment, such as a parametric equalizer, audio converter
Audio converter
In signal processing, an audio converter or digital audio converter is a type of electronic hardware technology which converts an analog audio signal to a digital audio format, either on the input , or the output...
s, and a tube compressor. The songs were then balanced
Balanced audio
Balanced audio is a method of interconnecting audio equipment using impedance-balanced lines. This type of connection is very important in sound recording and production because it allows for the use of long cables while reducing susceptibility to external noise.Balanced connections use...
to distribute the music evenly through stereo channels
Stereophonic sound
The term Stereophonic, commonly called stereo, sound refers to any method of sound reproduction in which an attempt is made to create an illusion of directionality and audible perspective...
, and eventually burned back onto a CD-R. Following the release of the mastered album, "Karmageddon," claimed in an interview that the mastering process he used is "basically the TRUE industry standard as to how a CD gets finalized before mass-production." Once the mastered album was released on the internet, it became the first-ever mastered copy of The Lillywhite Sessions, since the original leaked files were simply raw tracks from the mixing board
Mixing console
In professional audio, a mixing console, or audio mixer, also called a sound board, mixing desk, or mixer is an electronic device for combining , routing, and changing the level, timbre and/or dynamics of audio signals. A mixer can mix analog or digital signals, depending on the type of mixer...
and were never mastered.